Groom By Arrangement

‘Extremely well.’

‘Ah!’ He grinned, playing the big, amiable fool again. ‘No wonder I kept losing.’

She didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. ‘So, will you be staying another night?’ she asked, struggling to maintain her usual air of untouchability.

He smiled, that dangerous smile that made her heart kick against her ribs again. ‘Do you want me to?’ he countered, his voice a little huskier, his breath warm against her cheek.

She drew back, her eyes flashing him an instant frost warning. ‘I was merely being polite,’ she snapped.

That smile lingered, taunting her. ‘Maybe I will,’ he mused softly. ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet. It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether I think it may be worth my while.’

She stiffened, her hackles rising. He appeared to have mistaken her for Darlene. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, you might as well leave right now,’ she retorted in a voice that would strip paint.

He merely laughed, feigning an innocence that would have fooled no one. ‘Now, what could you possibly think I mean?’ he taunted.

For one tense moment she felt an uncharacteristic urge to slap that arrogant face. She knew he had been deliberately needling her, but she was almost too angry to care if she made a scene. Instead she swept down and outwards with her elbows, to break his hold on her, and without another word turned him an aloof shoulder and stalked away.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHO was that you were dancing with last night?’

‘No one,’ Natasha responded coolly, reaching for a second croissant. It was rare for Lester to appear at the breakfast table—he didn’t usually get up until the afternoon—and it didn’t augur a good start to the day. After the scene last night in the garage, she would have preferred to have had as little contact with him as possible.

Lester laughed unpleasantly. ‘It wasn’t “no one”,’ he insisted. ‘You never dance with the customers—what makes that one so special?’

‘He caught me as I was walking back to the bar,’ she conceded stiffly. ‘I couldn’t very well avoid him.’

‘It was the guy that’s been losing heavily on the blackjack tables.’ Lester’s pale eyes glinted with greed. ‘That’s the sort of punter I like. You be nice to him, girl. Schmooze him a little. Play him along. The guy’s a sucker—if he thinks he’s in with a chance of making it with you he’ll stick around until his pockets are empty.’

Natasha returned him a look of cold dislike, spreading her croissant with apricot jam and biting into it delicately. The table was their usual one, set in the sunny bay window of the empty supper room. None of the other tables was laid—the casino wouldn’t be open for another couple of hours.

Only the cleaners were in—she could hear one of them singing tunelessly as she worked, the quiet hum of a vacuum cleaner replacing the usual clamour of the slot machines in the foyer. In the gaming room the curtains at the long windows had been drawn back and the windows opened to air the room, letting the bright, unfamiliar sunshine stream in.

‘You’re suggesting I should let him think I might go to bed with him so that he’ll stay and go on losing money at the tables?’ she clarified with icy disdain.

‘So what’s wrong with that?’ Lester demanded, sneering. ‘You don’t have to deliver. Come on—you know how the game works.’

‘I might know how it works, but that doesn’t mean I have to like how it works,’ she countered. ‘Not the way you play it, anyway.’

Her stepfather slammed down his coffee cup, his face as red as a tomato. ‘Damned toffee-nosed bitch!’ he snarled. ‘This place’d be losing money hand over fist if it wasn’t for me. And what thanks do I get? You can’t even bring yourself to be civil to my friends.’

‘If by “friends” you mean that creep you brought over here last month, and if by “civil” you mean not objecting to his hands wandering all over me when I was talking to him, then forget it,’ she returned crisply. ‘His sort don’t warrant civility—in fact he’s damned lucky he didn’t get my knee in his groin. And you can warn him that if he tries that sort of thing on with me again, that’s exactly what he will get.’

Lester leaned forward, prodding a finger at her across the table. ‘You’d better watch your tongue, my girl. Nobody speaks to Tony de Santo like that,’ he warned menacingly. ‘He’s got connections.’

Natasha merely laughed. Her stepfather was always boasting of his friends and their ‘connections’, but she wasn’t impressed. ‘I’ll speak to him how I like,’ she retorted. ‘The man’s a snake—and that’s probably being unfair to snakes.’ Her appetite gone, she drained her coffee and got up from the table without bothering to finish her breakfast.

The family’s private apartment was on the upper floor of the casino, in the old warehouse manager’s quarters. Natasha still shared it with Lester—somehow neither of them had got around to moving out. But, since neither of them spent very much time there, even taking their meals downstairs in the supper room, sharing it had never really been a problem.

But now, as she climbed the narrow staircase, she pulled a wry face. Maybe it was time to start talking about one of them living elsewhere.

What she needed was a swim to burn the edge off her tension, she decided briskly. She changed into a swimsuit and pulled her T-shirt and shorts back on over top, and then, pausing only to pick up some sunscreen and a towel, a broad-brimmed hat and a good book, she slipped down the back stairs, past the kitchens and out into the clear morning sunshine.

The beach would be crowded, but she knew of another one, hidden away, just ten minutes’ walk through the trees. It was quite small, so few people ever found it, and she could usually be guaranteed almost total privacy. Swinging her straw bag across her shoulder, she set off along the path which led past the beach cottages and up over a spur of dark volcanic rock, and then down to the tree-sheltered cove, with its deserted patch of white sand lapped by the turquoise-blue Caribbean Sea.

At this time of the morning the water had already been pleasantly warmed by the sun. She swam for a while with a smooth, powerful stroke, diving down beneath the sparkling surface to visit the rock pools and pockets of coral where shoals of tiny bright fish darted about, until she felt the coiled springs inside her begin to unwind and a pleasant ache of tiredness in her muscles.

The tiny beach was still empty as she climbed up out of the water. Scrubbing her hair roughly dry with the towel, she tucked it beneath her sunhat and then spread the towel out beneath a convenient rock, smoothed a generous dollop of suncream into her skin, perched her sunglasses on her nose and sat down with her back against the rock to enjoy the sheer bliss of solitude and a good book.

For about a minute. She had barely read half a page when the peace of the morning was abruptly shattered by a banging and thumping, and she glanced up to see a tall, familiar figure emerging from beneath the trees, a wind-surf board clutched clumsily under his arm. Uttering a most unladylike expletive under her breath, she bent her head over her book, shielding her face with the brim of her hat.

Dammit! Any intrusion on her quiet retreat would have been unwelcome—but if it had to be invaded, why on earth did it have to be by Hugh Garratt…?

‘Hello, there,’ he greeted her with amiable good humour. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

‘Indeed.’ Her tone would have dampened most men’s attempts to engage her attention.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ he queried politely—though the unmistakable lilt of amusement in his voice confirmed that he actually knew perfectly well that he was disturbing her. In fact, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had come down here with that deliberate intention.

‘Not in the least,’ she rapped in answer, not bothering to look up from her book.

‘I came down to try out this windsurfing lark,’ he confided disarmingly. ‘Only I didn’t want anyone to see me making a fool of myself until I can get the hang of it.’

She tilted up her head, slanting him a suspicious glance from behind her sunglasses. ‘You’ve never tried it before?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. I’ve often promised myself I’d have a go, though, so I thought I might as well take this chance, while I’m here.’

‘Well, don’t let me stop you.’ She returned her attention to her book, doing her best to ignore him as he stripped off his faded T-shirt to reveal a remarkably well-made torso, all smooth, hard muscle beneath lightly bronzed skin, with a smattering of rough dark hair across the width of his chest, arrowing down to…

Swiftly she snatched her eyes back to the jumbled words on the page, angry at her own awareness of him. He was just another punter—and one who couldn’t tell the difference between a brush-off and a come-on, apparently. Hadn’t she known more than enough of those? Her mouth compressed in irritation, she turned the page of her book—and then realised that she hadn’t read any of the previous three paragraphs.

‘Excuse me…?’

His shadow fell across her, a few grains of sand sprinkling onto her feet. She drew in a long, slow breath to indicate her annoyance, and then looked up at him. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I wondered if I could borrow a little of your suncream?’ he queried with a hint of diffidence, as if afraid she would bite his head off. ‘I forgot to bring any, and I don’t want to get burned.’

She was tempted to remark that he already seemed to have a pretty good tan, but she knew that wasn’t necessarily enough protection from the damaging rays of the hot Caribbean sun. ‘Of course.’ She nodded curtly, dipping her hand into her bag and pulling it out. ‘Here.’

‘Thank you.’

Even without looking up, she was still aware of him standing so close to her—and to judge from the sounds of the gloops and slurps he was using up half the tube of cream. Then there was another moment of hesitation.

‘I don’t like to bother you again…’ His voice was all innocent apology, his smile one of ingratiating charm. ‘But would you mind putting some on my back for me? I can’t reach.’